The Beginning
The day was June 26th, 2013. I wanted to surprise my husband with some authentic Parsi food as everyone in my family knew that ‘Parsi’ is not something I did.
My forte is actually dips and desserts. I find baking relaxing – something about measuring everything accurately and mixing it just so, calms me down. But, ask me to cook something Parsi and my mind goes blank. We both love eating Parsi food though so I had to figure something out!
I tried picking up the phone to call my savior – mom – for a workable recipe and realised it was the middle of the night in NZ. Searched through some blogs but there was only a handful and none that explained what to do step by step. Whining to myself about why there wasn’t 1 decent blog/site about Parsi food that newly weds can read for some home-cooked Parsi goodness – I removed the dusty Katy Dalal book of recipes mom gave me (jokingly as part of my dowry) and made some Dhansak. I was wracked with doubt the whole time until hubby tasted it and gave me the verdict. Phew!
That night, I had a dream. I had started a Parsi food blog which newly and not so newly wed Bawis all across the world could refer to for home-cooked Parsi food goodness. It had all the simple stuff like curry, masoor and kebabs as well as fancy stuff for the more adventurous.
Next morning, I decided. Why not start one in reality? Thanks to our fabulous Asha who helped me discover my knack for writing I had been itching to have a project of my own and a Parsi food blog seemed interesting. Not only could I learn to cook Parsi food myself but I could also eat it, write about it and feed it to others – my foodie personality seemed thrilled with it all and that’s how BawiBride.com was born.
The Start
Suddenly, I couldn’t be kept away from my kitchen. I was occupied every weekend photographing my curry, discussing variations with my readers and researching more and more recipes I could try out.
It became my little baby and that’s when I posted on the Rodinhoods asking how I could improve Bawi Bride, perhaps I could have a FB page to improve readership or could I make some money out of it even? What I got back was a surprise – so many helpful people got back to me with comments, suggestions, contacts, templates I was overwhelmed. In particular were:
Darshan Bhambiru – he helped me what not – contacts for bottle suppliers, leads for FB groups, suggestions to improve my FB page, resharing my content within his networks. Nothing was too small a request for him!
Nameet Potnis – he spent almost 40 of his valuable minutes giving me suggestions and urging me to have a Twitter account (now almost 70 – 80% of my paid customer come through Twitter so I do owe him a Dhansak or two)
Sanjay Shenoy – in addition to his beautiful feedback comment he helped me with my blog template, wordpress plugins, and mentored me through shifting to my own server and was so helpful
Sushrut Munje – my first non-family paid customer!
Since that post and with a little motivation from my husband and The Rodinhoods, Bawi Bride morphed from being a Parsi food blog to being a kitchen where we served up dips, desserts and Parsi delicacies.
The Difference
Every business must have something that is unique, something that defines them. I decided that serving Parsi food could not be a long term differentiator and hence launched a menu with a difference – one that rotated each week! Why?
Well, as a foodie I have always found ordering food to be the most painful process ever.
Going to a restaurant which has a 10 pg menu and 50 dishes freaks me out and it ends with me only sticking with a safe option and ordering what I know. I didn’t want this to happen with my Parsi food and Dessert loving customers and hence decided to offer no choice at all! It is in fact a growing trend in London where an increasing number of restarants have taken customer choice off the menu.
With Bawi Bride too, this experiment has paid off. Since the launch of the kitchen, one month after the blog, we have had 11 different menus with each of them having a steady demand each week.
We have also done our first party order as well successfully delivered a Parsi food order to Dubai as well!
Some of my key learnings so far are:
1. From a marketing – conversion point of view, receiving media coverage and being active on Twitter have been the two main sources of getting actual paid customers
2. FB groups and my own FB page rather than Twitter continue to be the main source of traffic to the blog
3. Building a tribe and asking for permission before emailing works! My curated list of 150 subscribers may seem very tiny as a number but I receive on average 2 orders a week and they continue to remain evangelists for my brand
4. Consistency is key – the menu must go out on a Tuesday and the RSS update on a Thursday.
5. Food is my currency. I don’t give discounts but I give my repeat customers new food to try. Find out what is your currency (low cost for you and high value for the customer) and keep offering that to delight customers
Some of the new things I would now like to try and would like your opinion on:
- Personalised 1 – 1 Parsi cooking classes held at my home in a Parsi kitchen
- You Tube channel for Parsi food
- Expand into offering content on planning Parsi weddings
- Guest posts by popular Parsi caterers for the wedding season (kind of like embracing the competition)
What I need
- Mentors that have been in the catering/F&B industry in India for guidance on regulations, packaging etc
- Connections to other chefs at home that are passionate about learning and cooking Parsi food. I have a tome of recipes that I’d like to share and doing them all myself is not very feasible
- Connections to colleges where I can get some hospitality intern support
- Feedback on my presentation below
Thanks for reading and Keep writing, Keep eating, Keep feeding!
asha chaudhry
perzen… for some reason, i find bawi bride very close to my heart. to me, it will always be a case study of how one’s passion for food & writing can become an incredible business! i have always applauded you for your pro-activeness – you are very resourceful and use your resources in the most productive way ever. and i admire this trait of yours.
i’ve asked tanul to reach out to you for some pointers – https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/pr-for-eatopia-and-eatopian-d…
coming to your q’s –
– go for the parsi cooking classes in your kitchen. not too often. stick to once or twice a month.
– you tube channel is an awesome idea. i think it could be the beginning of a cooking show!! i see you having your own show perzen – it’s not all that far-fetched an idea!
– i think you should seriously start writing to tv channels that host cooking shows – you could be a guest host/chef in some shows. e.g. HOMP – rocky & mayur are crazy dudes (i’m connected to both via fb) – so if you write to them/ndtv good times – they could do something on parsi cooking and parsi food when they are in mumbai.
– if guest bloggers are willing, why not?! have a section
– planning parsi weddings – if you stick to the food part of the wedding – that’s great. otherwise it will dilute your focus from food.
perz – if you don’t get interns etc in the couple of weeks – you could also create a post in JOBS.
Sarthak Jain
Excellent Perzen. I think this is a story which many creative people will relate to . How to monetize your Passion>> And Yes, it’s very important to talk about money. I know so many creative people who leave what they like and eventually end up doing and working on things that they don’t like because they couldn’t make money out of their hobby, out of what they enjoyed most or what they were most passionate about. I especially like that we are discussing the process – getting readership and how to make the small things BIG. Being appreciated for our creativity is the only high we need. And Being a Foodie, I am biased here. Kudos and More Power !!
Perzen Darukhanawalla
Thank you so much Sarthak for stopping by and reading my story. Very true re the being appreciated for the creativity – cooking and feeding others gives me such a high! Since you are a foodie – do stop by and try some of my recipes one of these days 🙂